on a shore to me more hospitable, where for years I struggled with remorse, that would not kill me, though most sincerely did I long for death. For ever were rising up before me those phantoms, which had once been the realities I speak of here;-the deed of crime- the wanderings and woe that followed the short-lived dream of tranquillity - the happiness so nearly consummated the sudden reverse, and renewal of all my old self-torture. Few and uncertain were the calm intervals of this long season. A hand more mighty was at last stretched to pacify the waters of my strife: it came in its strength, during my solitary sojourn amongst strangers; it calmed the restlessness of my spirit; it gave a holy, and therefore, a happy aim! Many, many years elapsed, before I returned to the country of my birth. My nature and aspect were changed; but I could not then-I cannot now, recal to mind one portion of my hideous manhood, without an agitation which may have communicated something of itself to the tenor of these Recollections. May mercy be mine, in the sadness of those times!- and oh! much rather may mercy be mine hereafter, when those times will be remembered in judgment against me! It was on such a morning as that I have before described, when I entered the village where had dwelt my young love. The church bell was tolling now also, but with a different melody. It was the requiem of one, not yet over-borne by years or decay -but sunken under the hostility of a saddened existence. It was a lady who died, chiefly, they said, of a spirit bruised by early disappointment, and subsequent ill-treatment. She had wedded some brute who broke her heart by neglect. Had she been mine, I believe-perhaps I dream-that this would have been otherwise. And yet, who can say that whatever has been might have been amended? Am I the wise man who would correct the ordained course of things? or do I grieve, Rachel my beautiful, my beloved! that thou hast gone thus early to thy grave, shrouded in thine innocence-thus early to behold and taste the joys from which I would have kept thee back? In the darkness and loneliness of the days which are left to me on earth, when the spectres of the past stand most thickly, and with deepest horror, around me—poor solitary wretch as I am, and must be, till that funeral bell proclaims the termination of my own sad pilgrimage-when I am most hopeless, may the thought of this departed Angel point out to me a track all bright and luminous, with just anticipation of a final rest. When I am most selfdebased, and wrung with anguish for my sins, may her love and pity for me soothe the delirium of the moment, and teach me that though I could not then deserve it, yet my ways may in time be those of pleasantness, and the ruffled river may emerge at last into an ocean of eternal calm! I know, I know that my crime is one which man should not, cannot pardon: I know that the very mention of my name must ever be followed with contempt and execration; that, like another Cain, I bear upon my brow the marks of meditated, of accomplished homicide! But to this I am resigned, by the conviction that it must soon terminate, by the hope that it may be terminated for ever: for who-who shall say that the blood of the Redeemer, which cleanseth from all sin, may not cleanse even from this? Who shall say that even I may not be heard when I offer the prayer of the Psalmist,-a murderer too, like myself,- Pardon mine iniquity, O Lord, for it is great! O my God! if I have remembered thee in my bed, and thought upon thee when I was waking; if I have been made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights have been appointed to me; if one hour of guilt has been followed by years and years of the deepest and bitterest repentance, grant me deliverance in the great and fearful day, for I have sought it carefully with tears!' |